Post #4 – Traveling Through a Network

When you type a URL in your computer address bar, it sends packets of information using internet protocol through a worldwide network.  If for any reason, there’s a noticeable delay of transmission from your computer to the network site you’re trying to reach then you have tools on your computer that can help you determine where the delay of transmission might be occurring. One of the tools is the Terminal tool on a Mac OS or the CMD tool on a Windows OS.  Using the Terminal tool on the MacOS I conducted the Ping and Traceroute tests on websites to explain what information is being relayed through the tool.

Ping

Ping is like using Google Maps if you go to an address repeatedly; picture plugging in an address then logging each time it took you to arrive at that address. When you send a ping, packets of information disassemble then reassemble, traveling from your network to that IP address and then giving you information on how long it took to get there.  Now, going back to the Google Maps analogy, say that your driving route is blocked, your routing information is not displayed.  In the case of Ping, the information that is displayed when you can’t reach a site might display “Request timed out.” This is an indication that you’re not able to travel outside of your network.  If your network devices are down or your ISP is down then these are reasons why a Ping might fail.

 

Ping sites:

Google.com

Amazon.ca

Iceland.is

Ping and Geographical Location

 

My ping results show the average time it takes to reach the Google server is 8ms, the average time to reach the Canadian Amazon server is 46ms, and the average time it took to reach the Iceland server is 109ms.  The longer packet transmission times show that information takes longer to reach its destination as you travel further from where you are located. 

 

Traceroute

 

Traceroute on the other hand is like looking at Google Maps and the stops you made on your route to your destination; it tells you how long it took to get from one point to the next point, and how many stops you made till you arrived at your destination.  Since information travels in a non-linear way through ping packets, the packets take hops from one router to another until it is reassembled at the URL you’re trying to reach.  Traceroute will display the various routers that your packets were sent to and how long it takes to get from one router to the other and how many hops it took altogether (GeeksforGeeks, n.d.).  A traceroute can show you lots of information and some companies will block certain ports so a traceroute can’t be done, thus causing the tracert to fail. 

 

Traceroute sites:

Ashford.edu

Amazon.ca

Iceland.is

Reference

 

GeeksforGeeks. (n.d.). Difference between ping and traceroute. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-ping-and-traceroute